Prologue

Prologue

When I tell people of our plans to leave everything we know behind and move our family to a country we have never seen, I am often met with one of two reactions. The first reaction is surprise, followed quickly by a hint of jealousy, clouding their eyes with unnamed dreams and soaring spirits. That is my my favorite reaction. The other reaction is not as pleasant, and sometimes leaves even me wondering what in the world I could possibly be thinking. Their eyes narrow as their bodies seem to shrink away from me in horror. They express dismay over that fact that I am taking my children, MY CHILDREN away to some third world country where God only knows what could happen to them. The dreams I dream of a slow paced life, filled with pleasant walks and plentiful swims in the oceans blue waters seem silly, or even dangerous. Then I pull myself up, and remember WHY we made this decision in the first place.

This story goes back many years, to our eldest son, Michael. That is a story that some of you already know, and one I may share with the rest of you some other time. Michael passed away from a malignant brain tumor when he was six years old, and left Rick and I adrift with out any anchor. We have managed to hold onto one another, and three more beautiful children, but in both of us there is still a painful abyss that will forever linger. As each of of out other children were born, that dread foreboding would come upon me, and I would watch fearfully as they grew, terrified that this child too, would be taken from us. Several of our children were indeed taken from us before they were able to be born into this world. Sierra, Trey and Chandler did make it and seemed to be healthy and happy, and eventually I was able to let go of that terrible fear. Rick opened our business, and I was able to change my focus and dive head first into building it up. We hired nannies to help with the children and spent many years working ten to twenty hour days, six and seven days a week, working ourselves into exhaustion. We told ourselves and each other that when we had “enough” we would take time off, and spend time with the children. This brings us to last year, the year we woke up.

Our middle child, Trey, had been diagnosed with a hemangioma when he was about a year and a half old. It was a small lump in his cheek, and the doctor assured us that it was nothing to be concerned with, it would go away on its own. Instead of going away, it grew larger. Not much, not for years. It grew slowly, we really didn't even notice it much. Late in 2010, it started getting much larger. I had begun to grow concerned, and was planning on making an appointment with the pediatrician. We had been told that unless it got a lot bigger, got very hard, or started hurting not to worry about it. One day Trey came home from school, holding his face and crying. He said it hurt. I tried to feel it, see if it was hard (which it now was) and he flinched back in pain screaming. We went to the pediatrician the next day. Dr. B examined him and informed us that this is NOT a hemangioma, that they do not grow like this and that we were likely looking at a tumor. She additionally stated that benign tumors usually do not grow that way either, and that we would need to go in for a biopsy. Immediately the past came crashing down upon me like a wave, and a hollowness filled my being. I began having very long conversations with God, which I had not done in many years. This was when we decided that we had “enough,” and cut our hours and stopped putting work first and started refocusing on the children. The lump in Trey's face was indeed a tumor, but fortunately benign. While he does have permanent damage to his face, he is alive and healthy and happy, but we still had had enough.

Our search began, find a place that we could go that we could afford and that could get us away from the feeling that we always had to have “more.” We wanted to find a place that was much slower, focused on family, that was not as materialistic, and within our budget. We looked at so many places! We finally settled on Belize, and what follows will be an accounting of our adventures: the preparation, the move, and, once we finally get there, our new, slower paced lives.  Some posts will be serious, many will be humorous, but they will all be true.  Thank you for reading, we hope to see you on our journey.